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In the ’70s, my parents had a vacation home in Calistoga decorated in bright orange fabrics, overflowing plates of gourds and Norman Rockwell reproductions for the family and business associates to enjoy. Then, when they were no longer married, the vacation home became my dad’s...

A few months ago I found myself in need of a ride from my parents’ house in San Francisco to the airport to catch a flight home. I was wearing my Easter dress at the time my drivers pulled up, which I had alternated wearing with my black Puma sweat pants for two weeks – the only...

The great thing about gorging on hot dogs and potato salad for weeks on end, I’ve learned, is that you can undo any caloric damage in one clean sweep: A Cleanse. Personally, I don’t remember having this option after gaining the freshman fifteen or the post-pregnancy thigh bags....

What if you don’t want another door to open after one closes? Like when your kid’s fourth fish dies in one year and your husband promises him a turtle. I mean, can’t we just let bygones be bygones? It’s like those fridge magnets inscribed with inspirational sayings designed to...

As I walked into an Internet café in the middle of Idaho about an hour ago – and I use the word “café” lightly – I was asked by a fellow patron how I got there. To the café, I assumed. How I ended up in Idaho would have been a much longer story and, quite frankly, none of his...

Sugar Mama – Why is that people on vacation feel compelled to dress like they’re on a safari … cargo and pockets everywhere, even at the beach? Dressed to Kill Dressed, I usually hate to bog my readers down with scientific blather, but the behavior you’re referring to is...

I’ll start by admitting that I have a cleaning lady, as well as most of the personality traits that go along with it: I’m lazy, messy, and have an inflated sense of self-worth. So imagine my frustration when I came home from work the other day to my very own kitchen oozing with...

“Get ready for the hardest years of your life,” a friend told me when my husband and I started having kids. What? Being a parent is supposed to be blissful! Purposeful! Enriching! But as I round out a decade as a mother of two sons, I realize that she was absolutely right....

Dear Sugar Mama – In light of the fact that most of us will be receiving our kids’ end-of-year report cards over the next few weeks, will you please weigh in on the topic of PAYING UNREASONABLE AMOUNTS OF MONEY FOR GOOD GRADES? Personally, I think it’s TOTALLY ridiculous – kids...

Remember when Christina Aguillera went on “Ellen” a few years ago and told America about her and her new husband’s quirky little ritual they coined “Naked Sundays”? Apparently, at the end of every week, she and that darling Jason Bratman spent the entire day in the nude, cooking,...

I know this is controversial, and that many of you roll your eyes whenever I bring this up. And I get your side – really. You want to be accessible to our children, cultivating an open forum for free dialogue as a proactive disciplining measure – if we’re “pals” with our...

Whenever my two kids go anywhere near the topic of procreation, I start maniacally rambling about chickens. It started a few years ago at Zoomars in San Juan Capistrano, when my kids saw a chicken lay an egg. “Look, it had a baby!” my then-4-year-old said. This was parenting...

When I asked my husband if he wanted to have a third child, he said no. “Why on earth would you want another kid?” he asked. “We’re just starting to get our freedom back.” He had a point, I guess. Our two sons are healthy, happy and, best of all, in school all day. So maybe that...

Dear Sugar Mama, My son is 2 and he is a BITER! He is a very loving boy, but when he gets too excited or tired (or maybe hungry?) he BITES. We have tried time-outs, but they don’t get the message across. How can I change this behavior? Thanks, Once Bitten, Twice Shy Dear...

“If a tree falls in a forest, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” my 9-year-old asked me the other evening. “You tell me … When I blow you a kiss, do you feel it?” I asked back. “Yes. No,” he said. “Well, both.” “Then there’s your answer,” I told him. “Well,...

I made a pact with my kids on the day they were born that I would always be home for them after school. “Three to 5 in the afternoon is when all the riff-raff happens,” my mother warned me. “When the latchkey kids wreak havoc.” The irony, of course, is that I was a latchkey kid....

I grew up as the youngest of three kids and, regardless of the fact that my two older siblings are male, I was the not-so-proud recipient of their hand-me-down clothing. As I look back, though, I’m not nearly as affected by it today as I was when I wearing my brother’s Boy Scout...

If you can’t bring the mountain to Mohammed, bring Mohammed to the mountain. Or, in my case, bring him to IKEA. When my husband and I decided to have kids 10 years ago, we SWORE we would leave the country once a year in an effort to round out some semblance of global education...